Cleaning up the Act of Cooking

Improved cook stoves (ICS) have the potential to deliver triple benefits: health and time savings, reduced deforestation, and reduced emissions of black carbon, a significant short-term contributor to global climate change. This video highlights a Duke University research study that aims to better understand the diffusion of ICS technologies in Uttarakhand, India.

Video Transcript

Cleaning up the act of cooking.
Text: Uttarakhand India [black background]
Text: cleaning up the act of cooking [scene of Indian countryside]
Text: Three out of 4 households in India use solid fuels for cooking [pot cooking over open fire], consisting mainly of firewood [firewood drying in the open air] and cow dung [stacks of dung cakes]
Nearly 434,000 deaths, mostly of women and children, occur every year in India due to pollution from cooking with solid fuels [child hanging in basket]
Cooking with firewood also harms natural resources [black background]
In Uttarakhand, household often cute the limbs off the trees for firewood [woman’s feet walking though grass] [Shot of trees/limbs/man carrying firewood]
Duke University researchers and their Indian Partners are studying the factors that enable families to purchase cleaner cookstoves. [black background]
Based on consumer demand to cleaner stoves have been included in the research [black background]. An efficient wood-burning stove [picture of the greenway stove] and an electric stove [picture of the g-coil stove]. These stoves have the potential to reduce pollution, decrease the use of firewood, and improve health. [black background]
Omkar Patange, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI)
Omkar Patange: Hi this is Omkar Patange I work with I work with TERI the Energy and Resources Insitute at New Delhi. Cost is a big issue in selling these stoves right now the capital cost if you consider say starting from 20 dollars to up to 70 at which these improved cookstove are available uh are fairly high compared to a free mudstove that people own now. Then there are financing issues if people want to buy improved cookstoves they need some financing to cover this capital cost to some extent
Text: In some cases, the person doing the cooking does not control the decision to purchase a better stove. [black background]
[Indian woman in her home]
Vasundhara Bhojvaid, Duke University: [speaking local language to woman on film]
Indian Woman: [speaks in local language]
Vasundhara: [translating] She cooks on the stove
Vasundhara: [to the camera] So I’m asking her why she didn’t buy it [speaking local language to Indian woman]
Indian woman: [speaking local language]
Vasundhara: [translating] I liked it. My household members said no
Vasundhara: [speaking local language, then translating] and so I said did you try to convince them? And she said I tried but they said we already have a mud stove
Text: There are also supply chain problems and shops rarely stock these better stoves. No shops in Uttarakhand currently sell wood-burning stoves and only one shop sells the electric stove [black background]
Jessica Lewis, Duke University
Jessica: There is really no semblance of a supply chain for cookstoves in India particularly in the states where we’re working, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh and how can you get people to adopt a stove if no one is selling it.
Text: Despite the barriers, a large percent of household in the research study bought a better stove [Jessica, Vasundhara and two Indian people in background]
Nearly 75% of the stoves purchased by household were electric stoves. Uttarakhand has high coverage with electricity [electrical wires]
Text at bottom: The electric stove can be used to cook most dishes [Indian woman in her home standing next to the electric stove]
Vasundhara Bhojivaid, Duke University
Vasundhara: [speaking local language to woman in household, translating] So there’s tea, there’s rice, there’s pulses or lentils which we call daal, and there’s [Indian woman speaking in background] the warm milk, shobji, vegetables except roti, no roti
Text: Household report a number of benefits [picture of the electric stove]
Text: Time savings [Indian woman speaking]
Vasundhara: [translatingI] time is saved, first thing time…because I have to go very far to collect firewood
Text: less smoke [Indian woman speaking]
Vasundhara: [translating] Less smoke
Text: Saves fuelwood [Indian woman speaking]
Vasundhara: [translating] Fuelwood she’s saying fuelwood is being saved
Text: Research is ongoing to test different strategies that can increase the adoption of better fuels and cooking technologies. These efforts can help improve health, enhance quality of life, and reduce environmental impacts. [marsh grass in water]
Text: Duke University Principal Investigators: Dr. Subhrendu Patanayak and Dr. Marc Jeuland [Indian countryside]
Text: www.tractionproject.org